Sorry if this ends up being really long, I'm just freaking out right now and need to write my thoughts to someone anonymously.
Background, skip if too long: I'm a 22 year old female and I never ever want to hurt kids. I run a FB page to raise awareness for child abuse and I find child abusers disgusting, especially people who sexually abuse kids. A few years ago I had severe anxiety of a (presumably) false memory of myself being molested as a kid, but got over that one. I've even considered working with kids for my job but now idk about that. But basically child abuse is something that really upsets me and I guess that's why my OCD targeted it.
Anyway...
Around three years ago I had a really severe POCD false memory fear that lasted for like a week and then went away. And then I had a bunch of other fears and pretty much thought I was done with POCD or that it wasn't going to hit me that hard again.
Well, randomly two days ago I could tell that my anxiety was sort of riling up and looking for something for me to worry about. I was in a store with my parents and a little kid was walking around the store. The first time she passed by me I felt myself sort of flinch away from her because I was like uh oh, I don't want my anxiety to create some false memory regarding this kid. So I guess that fear was already kind of on my mind. Then, later, my parents and I were in line and we ended up behind the little girl and her family. And I noticed how she was touching all of the candy in front of the cash register which I thought was cute. And my mom pointed out that her and the kid were wearing the same kind of shoes (my mom and I always notice cute little kids because she loves kids), and then basically the kid and her family paid for their stuff and left, and we paid for our stuff and left. But I started feeling anxious as we were paying and after we left the store, like my anxiety was taunting me and saying "what if you get a false memory of doing something inappropriate to that kid." Ugh it's hard for me to even type this. But my anxiety wasn't super bad at that point, just kind of growing and making me nervous. But by the next day I felt terrible and I kept running thoughts through my head like "what if I did something inappropriate to the kid, like grabbed her (ugh I hate writing this $#%^)?" And I tried to rationalize by saying that I would never do something like that, would have no desire to etc. but the thoughts just kept coming, saying like "what if you're secretly a p (I can't bring myself to type the whole word out) and you impulsively did something?" And my anxiety was absolutely terrible.
By yesterday the anxiety was awful but maybe starting to ebb a bit. I went through periods of feeling okay like "I'm sure I didn't do that," "I'm sure I'll get over this" etc. But then yesterday something happened that really, really freaked me out. This is a little hazy because I've gone over it so many times in my mind. I was in my room half-naked after coming out of the bathroom. Like naked from the waist down. And my window blinds were slightly open. I usually have them that way because I have plants on the window ledge that need sunlight. Well, I noticed they were open and that someone might see me half naked in my room even though they were only open a small amount. My window overlooks the backyard and the neighbors who have kids could potentially see into my window from their backyard (I think?). And they have this little playhouse in their backyard which I guess reminded me that they could have been out there. And I'm pretty sure there were no kids out there anyway but my false memory is telling me that there were. So I closed the blinds, but not all the way. I can't remember why I didn't close them all the way, I think because I still wanted some light in my room to see, or I thought it didn't matter because there were no kids out there? Or that I just didn't care because I already felt disgusting so I was like who cares? That one doesn't make a ton of sense though because I'm usually paranoid about anyone seeing into my window and would be embarassed if anyone saw me, and my anxiety wasn't even at its worst at that time. That part I don't really remember. Anyway after a few seconds I decided to close them all the way and finish putting my clothes on. As soon as I had put my clothes on I started feeling anxious though. I had already been feeling anxious about the previous false memory but now I started feeling anxious like I had just done something wrong again. And my anxiety started telling me "you didn't close the blinds all the way at first cuz you wanted kids to see you changing cuz that thought turned you on and you're a p." And that thought makes me sick, like it's so disgusting. And it also makes no sense, like I wouldn't want anyone to see me changing my clothes, and I was already freaking out about being a p so why would I do that? And then my anxiety said "Okay you were not turned on and maybe you're not really a p but you were upset about the previous worry so you said who cares if kids see you changing? And that still counts as child abuse because you could have let kids see you naked on purpose!" And that thought makes me sick to my stomach. I started trying to rationalize that the kids weren't even out there in the first place but the false memory keeps telling me that they were! But it feels like a false memory. I even had thoughts that I should go to the neighbors and ask them if their kids were outside yesterday just to prove that they weren't, but obviously that would make me look like a freak and they would be like why are you asking??
I feel disgusting. I have had thoughts of self-harming even though I never ever want to do that. But I feel absolutely disgusting and like I can't tell anyone or I'll get added to a sex offender list. Before my OCD got bad like this I never had thoughts like this. I was fine being around kids and this $#%^ wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Now I feel anxious whenever I see a kid and I don't even wanna go near them because I'm scared of what my anxiety will make me think. I just need someone to read this and give their opinion on it because I can't tell anyone who knows me in real life.